Justice Department Opens Probe Into Louisville Policing Over Breonna Taylor Death

[Jilly_in_VA]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is opening a sweeping probe into policing in Louisville, Kentucky after the March 2020 death of Breonna Taylor, who was shot to death by police during a raid at her home, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Monday. It’s the second such sweeping probe into a law enforcement agency by the Biden administration in a week.

The 26-year-old Taylor, an emergency medical technician who had been studying to become a nurse, was roused from sleep by police who came through the door using a battering ram. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired once. A no-knock warrant was approved as part of a narcotics investigation. No drugs were found at her home.

The new investigation is known as a “pattern or practice” — examining whether there is a pattern or practice of unconstitutional or unlawful policing — and will be a more sweeping review of the entire police department.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/justice-department-opens-probe-louisville-policing-breonna-taylor-death_n_6086fdabe4b0ccb91c282909

[Hortensis]

1. Good! Bad actors and their cronies are typically baked into the local hierarchy,

too powerful and entrenched to, practically speaking, be dislodged. The DoJ zeroing in on those "patterns and practices" is big enough to force change, and hopefully some will prefer resignation.

Police chief Erika Shields has been through this before. She was brought in this year to fix Louisville's "troubled" department, selected unanimously by a diverse panel. Before that she'd resigned as Atlanta's police chief to meet the emergency caused by the police killing of Rayshard Brooks in the parking lot of a Wendy's.

"I've heard her directly say, which I have never heard a chief before say, that there is a direct linkage between racism and policing," Green said. "Who's ever said something like that? I have never in my life heard anybody acknowledge that, say that without choking and without stammering or being pushed into a corner to be able to try to talk about race relations."

[Hoyt]

2. Good. I think main ones responsible for her death were police and judge involved in seeking warrant.

[Jilly_in_VA]

3. Since it's "pattern or practice"

I think it is going to be about more than just Breonna Taylor's death, although what that says, as far as I can tell, is that her death was part of a :pattern or practice" of policing there.